Tag Archives: Scandal

A Bishop Doing What He is Called to Do

23 Friday May 2014

Posted by in Excommunication, Sacraments

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This post is from CatholicVote.org and can be found here.

DEAR WOMAN PRIEST, YOU’RE EXCOMMUNICATED…LOVE, BISHOP PAPROCKI

And P.S. – You’re not a priest.

That pretty much sums up Bishop Paprocki’s response to a local Catholic woman’s recent attempt to get ordained.

The woman in question is Mary F. Keldermans of Springfield. Bishop Paprocki wrote to her last month asking her to reconsider her plan, but evidently she ignored him and tried to be ordained a priest at a Unitarian church on May 5.

Bishop Paprocki promptly issued a decree of excommunication (and if you’ve never seen one of those before, they look like this).

The bishop also issued this statement to his diocese:

Please be advised that Ms. Mary F. Keldermans of Springfield, Illinois, has attempted to be ordained a priest for “Roman Catholic Womenpriests, Inc.” in a ceremony at the Abraham Lincoln Unitarian Universalist Congregation in Springfield on May 5, 2014. As a result, she has incurred an automatic excommunication reserved to the Apostolic See.

That is what you call a bishop who’s not afraid to bishop.

At the same time, we should be careful not to tout this as some sort of righteous smack-down or triumphant display of authority. Bishop Paprocki is much too holy and charitable a bishop for that, and I have no doubt that his declaration of excommunication was issued with sorrow, not pleasure.

But he didn’t hold back from issuing the decree of excommunication either, or from publishing it prominently on the diocesan website.

This is one of the things I love about Bishop Paprocki. Whether it’s standing up forthe unborn, for marriage, or for Holy Orders, he doesn’t shy away from confronting those who threaten his flock, nor from explaining his position to themwith charity.

He prays intensely, he acts decisively, and he teaches clearly.

Lord, send us more bishops like this one!

Amen!

Dissenting Catholics and the Sin of Scandal

07 Monday Apr 2014

Posted by in Catholic Obligations, Christian Unity

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Found the quote below from the Catholic website Aleteia. The author makes an interesting point (no comment from me). The full article is here – you should go check it out.

3) Dissenting from Church teaching

This might seem counterintuitive, but this especially applies to those teachings with which other Christians or non-Christians disagree. Because why should they take Catholic teaching seriously when it appears that Catholics themselves don’t take Catholic teaching seriously?

And though I’m just a layperson, I’ll also humbly offer this thought, since I’ve had many Protestants express this to me: it’s hard for some non-Catholics to take seriously the supposed authority of bishops (an essential aspect of Catholicism) when it seems they allow so much dissent. When I talk to my evangelical friends about the faith, I can point out all the confusion and disunity sola scriptura causes for Protestants and then show that the Catholic magisterium offers a solution – at least in principle. This is because it appears as though our bishops often allow just as much dissent, confusion, and disunity on important issues as Protestants have with sola scriptura. What good is a bishop, they say, if he doesn’t actually guard the faith and maintain a semblance of order? This can make it easy for Protestants to dismiss the need for the Magisterium, saying that Catholics really don’t have it any better than they do.